Propagation and significance of cracks in railway components
Giovanni Pio Pucillo, University of Naples Federico II, Italy
Davide Leonetti, Eindhoven University of Technology, The Netherlands
Keywords: fatigue crack growth, damage tolerant design, fatigue and failure assessment, structural reliability, condition based maintenance, experimental and numerical methods
The proneness of railway components to fatigue damage has been a topic of research for decades, since the pioneering work of Wöhler on the fatigue of railway axles. Enabling damage tolerant philosophy as a design and a maintenance approach to components of the railway infrastructure, track, and vehicles requires knowledge of fracture and fatigue crack growth behavior for these components. In such approaches the goal is to determine an appropriate inspection plan, starting from the assumption that intrinsic defects exist and could grow under in-service loads. Therefore, due to the high risk of catastrophic events associated with the failure of railway components, both an in-depth understanding of the crack growth mechanisms and reliable prediction models are necessary to ensure an adequate level of safety.
The present symposium aims to be a hub for scientific contributions regarding the study of cracks and defects in railway components, serving as a platform to collect and stimulate researchers involved in the assessment, characterization, prevention, and failure analysis of fatigue cracks in railway components such as, but not limited to, railway tracks, superstructure, bridges, and rolling stock material.